Leaders of the gang Mara Salvatrucha assit to a mass in the Central Penitentiary Ciudad Barrios, 130 miles north East of San Salvador (El Salvador). Photo: Edgar Romero/DPA/PA Images. All rights reservedThis article is published as part of our series Which Violence in Latin America? in partnership with the University of Santiago in Chile
El Salvador’s street gangs are associated with extortion, threats, sexual violence, and homicides. They target not only rivals, but also those who resist their demands and may be collaborating with law enforcement. In recent years, the gangs have increasingly generated forced displacement from marginal urban areas and begun to exert influence in the country’s security sector and local governments. Groups such as MS-13 and the Barrio 18 have become more structured and clandestine, largely in response to the iron fist policies first launched in 2003 as an electoral strategy by the conservative ARENA party.
Since 2009, the ruling FMLN - the former guerrilla organization - has continued this approach to look firm on crime. A temporary gang truce, sponsored by the Funes government to reduce the murder rate, collapsed in the absence of a commitment to create jobs and services for gang-involved youths. Although in the run-up to the 2014 presidential contest, both major parties met privately with gang leaders to pay them for voter mobilization, they have strenuously rejected the idea of another ceasefire.
